How Google plans to hop on one of the hottest trends in Silicon Valley

How Google plans to hop on one of the hottest trends in Silicon Valley

Reuters/Stringer Silicon Valley is abuzz about messaging bots, and it looks like Google might finally throw its hat in the ring. In the last several months, startups and big companies alike have been promoting “conversation as a platform,” where users can chat with artificial-intelligence bots to complete a wide range of activities, like ordering an Uber or booking a hotel. Google, meanwhile, hasn’t made any bot-centric announcements, though that could change on Wednesday at the company’s developers’ conference, I/O, The Information reports. The Wall Street Journal reported in December that Google planned to release a smarter, bot-focused messenger app, but The Information says that the company will instead take a more general approach by offering developers tools to build chat bots for all different messaging platforms. The move would make sense. Google has struggled to launch…